Compound eye for smartphones and robots

January 31, 2017 | 06:35

Compound eye for smartphones and robots

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF have developed a process that allows cameras with a thickness of only 2 millimeters to be produced. Comparable to the eyes of insects, the lens of the camera is divided into 135 small segments...

Researchers at theFraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF have developed a process that allows cameras with a thickness of only 2 millimeters to be produced. Comparable to the eyes of insects, the lens of the camera is divided into 135 small segments, resulting in a resolution of 1 megapixel. It is therefore no surprise that the researchers gave their mini camera concept the name facetVISION.

The miniature lenses are placed close to each other; each lens 'sees', according to its position and with an apparture that resembles a shadow mask, only a small part of its surroundings. Ultimately this technology should achieve a resolution of 4 megapixels – higher than the resolution of the cameras that are currently used in industrial application (robots, for example).

Thisvery small thickness makes the camera suitable for a large number of industrial, automotive and medical applications. But also for the design of smartphones the new camera can have far-reaching consequences: the lens of a modern handycamera has a thickness of 5 millimeters, in order to obtain a sufficiently sharp image. This new camera technology can therefore become very interesting for the development of ultra-thin smartphones.

The researchers, under the leadership of Andreas Brückner, have already demonstrated that facetVISION is suitable for mass production.